The Sea in their Blood: Beside the Sea (1985) • Peter Greenaway shorts

Water often features in Greenaway’s work and this COI film gave him the chance to indulge his fascination by travelling round the coast of Britain filming whatever caught his eye. Thus the film also proved to be an essay in cataloguing ephemera associated with the sea; images of beaches, piers, fishing boats and animal and plant life are accompanied by a deluge of facts and figures about the seaside and its activities. In the typically playful narration, historical and literary references mingle with dubious statistics about herring consumption and lighthouse beams. The film is a masterclass in editing by Greenaway’s long-time collaborator John Wilson. Pace and mood change in accordance with the compelling score by Michael Nyman, from sequences of quick cutting to long slow tracking shots.